Cat-trashing lady outed by internet in less than 24 hours

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...and when I say "Internet" I really mean 4chan, and when I say "4chan" I really mean /b/. But we all knew this would happen, right?

Yesterday, Mark posted a disturbing video of a middle-aged woman petting a cat and then throwing it—alive—into a trash bin. Mark today posted an update that she's now under police protection. What hasn't been talked about yet on Boing Boing is what happened between those two posts. 4chan happened.

Often dismissed as little more than a gang of anonymous bullies, there is some truth to the notion that the site is simultaneously the best and worst of the internet, and that when they put their collective minds together, there is no stopping them. Sometimes they dun goof up, other times they emerge as victorious white knights on a quest from Ceiling Cat.

Almost immediately after the video started making the internet rounds yesterday, the 4chan legion set out to find this woman and destroy her life.

I don't know exactly how long it took, but within a few hours she was identified as Mary Bale, 50, of Coventry (England).

But there's more: they also found out where she worked. They posted the phone number and name of her boss. They found out where she lived, and posted a Google map of that address. They found her Facebook profile.

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